Nintendo

Nintendo: Nikkei’s article about Tatsumi Kimishima available in English

Last week, Nintendo announced that Tatsumi Kimishima (former president of Nintendo of America) was its new president. Shortly after, Nikkei published an article about it, which was partially translated by Serkan Toto: it’s now fully available in English, with some additional details (nothing really new, though).

The article explains that Tatsumi Kimishima will not lead Nintendo alone: he will be supported by Genyo Takeda (in charge of game systems, Technology Fellow) and Shigeru Miyamoto (in charge of software, Creative Fellow). This trio is called a troika by Nikkei, and it was set up in a bit of a hurry because of the holiday period right around the corner (it represents roughly 50% of the total Nintendo sales throughout the Fiscal Year).

According to Nikkei, the appointment of Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda as “Fellows” is a move that “detaches the two general managers from day-to-day responsibilities so that they can focus on leading the company, pursuing reforms with the president”.

As for Tatsumi Kimishima, he is known for his soft and friendly demeanor, but unlike Iwata, he has never worked on a game, and he even admitted to being a rather poor player. That being said, Nikkei mentions that employees have always appreciated his “straight talk”. During the press conference, Kimishima said the following “We always challenge ourselves to create exciting products — that’s Nintendo’s DNA.”

As mentioned previously, Tatsumi Kimishia wasn’t a favourite among Satoru Iwata’s possible successors. The reason why is that Nintendo tried to find someone younger, based on the belief that the president of a game company should be in touch with the youth. Quite obviously, the untimely death of Satoru Iwata was a problem, as no one was experienced enough to become president.

In the end, Tatsumi Kimishima was chosen in order to ensure a smooth transition, thanks to his rich managerial experience, which was especially important because of the upcoming holiday sales period.

The Nikkei article also mentions Nintendo’s plan to “strengthen training of its younger generation through greater delegation of authority”. They mention Shinya Takahashi (a potential future candidate for president), which will now oversee software development.

NINTENDO_LOGOSource: Nikkei

Lite_Agent

Founder and main writer for Perfectly Nintendo. Tried really hard to find something funny and witty to put here, but had to admit defeat.

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